Teliana Santos Pereira (born 20 July 1988) is a Brazilian former professional tennis player.
On 19 April 2015, she became the first Brazilian in 27 years to win a title on the WTA Tour, beating Yaroslava Shvedova in Bogotá. She achieved a singles ranking of world No. 48 in August 2015, after having won her second career title at Florianópolis by defeating German player Annika Beck, in three sets.
On 19 October 2015, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 43. Pereira won 22 singles and ten doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.
Playing for Brazil Fed Cup team (now Billie Jean King Cup), she was one of the players who has most represented Brazil, she participated in 26 matches and won 26 (17 in singles and 9 in doubles).
She is the sister of the Brazilian tennis player José Pereira.
She is currently married to the former Brazilian professional soccer player and club world champion Paulo André, with whom she has a son named Matteo.
Early and personal life Teliana Pereira was born on 20 July 1988 in Águas Belas, in the semi-arid region of Pernambuco, where she had to overcome a childhood on the fringes of poverty. Pereira was coached by her brother, Renato. Pereira's parents are Jose, who worked at a sugar cane plantation, and Maria; she has three brothers and three sisters. At a very young age, her father decided to leave his life as a sugarcane cutter and moved to Curitiba, where he had two brothers, and once he got a job at a tennis academy as a construction worker, he arranged for the rest of the family to follow him tand to try their luck. Everyone got work at the academy as well, with Teliana being a ball girl.
After the construction had finished, her father was hired to manage the place: he tidied, cleaned, and worked at the bar. Teliana, who had never studied before, started attending school and in the afternoons helped at the academy with her siblings.
Given the academy owner, Frenchman Didier Rayon, brought the Pereira children to the court whenever a student did not show up, Pereira started playing at age 8, and said that she already had grown an interest watching Renato play. One year later, she entered a tournament and won, her first title, barely knowing the rules well and relying on someone to help her with the points she scored. That's how she found out she had been the champion, making Rayon decide to become her coach.A única chance de vencer
Pereira's favorite tournament is the French Open. Her childhood tennis idol was Gustavo Kuerten. Her favourite surface is clay.
Career Pereira competed in the Rio de Janeiro Pan American Games in 2007, winning the bronze medal with Joana Cortez on the women's doubles competition.
Pereira was at the best moment of her career in 2009 when two knee injuries sidelined her. She underwent two surgeries and was out of action for a year and a half. During her recovery, she lost her sponsors and needed the help of friends to return to playing, even resorting to raffles to finance her. In that period she had to start from scratch, playing in Futures tennis events qualifiers at the beginning, but it did not take long for her to find her way back to victory, winning her first title since her return in October 2010.
In February 2013, Pereira reached the semifinals of Copa Colsanitas as a qualifier, which boosted her singles ranking to 116.
In February 2014, she reached the semifinals of the Rio Open.
In April 2015, Pereira reached the final of Copa Colsanitas where she won her first career title beating fifth seed Yaroslava Shvedova, in straight sets, to become the first Brazilian woman to win a WTA Tour singles title since 1988, and jumping 130 places up the WTA rankings to No. 81.
In July 2015, she won her second WTA Tour title at the Brasil Tennis Cup in Florianópolis. With the result, Pereira entered the top 50 for the first time. She was just the second Brazilian in the Open era to win a tour title in Brazil – Niege Dias achieved the feat once, doing it over in Guarujá in 1987.Pereira Makes History At Home In Brazil
Pereira performed very poorly throughout 2016 and finally dropped out of top 200 by the end of the season.
In 2016, she participated at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, stopping at the first round of singles and doubles, where she played alongside Paula Gonçalves and at the second round of mixed doubles, playing alongside Marcelo Melo. In September 2020, Pereira announced her retirement at the age of 32, declaring she had lost interest in training and travels, while expressing satisfaction with how her career went, with two WTA Tour titles and "always surpassing my expectations".Aos 32 anos de idade, Teliana Pereira anuncia sua aposentadoria do tênis Since then, she has commented tennis on ESPN Brazil and ran an academy on Campo Largo, Paraná.Teliana renova com ESPN e faz parte de super transmissão do US OpenClubes e Academias do Paraná: Academia Pereira Tennis
Grand Slam performance timelines
Singles Tournament 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Australian Open A A A A AQ11RQ21RQ2 A A 0–2 French Open A A A A AQ32R2R2R A A A 3–3 Wimbledon Q1 A A AQ1Q21R1R1R A A A 0–3 US Open A A A AQ1Q11R1R1R A A A 0–3Win–loss 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–0 1–4 1–3 1–4 0–0 0–0 0–0 3–11
WTA Tour finals Singles: 2 (2 titles) LegendPremierInternationalFinals by surfaceHard (0–0)Clay (2–0) ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScore Win 1–0 Copa Colsanitas, Colombia International Clay Yaroslava Shvedova 7–6(7–2), 6–1 Win 2–0 Brasil Tennis Cup, Brazil International Clay Annika Beck 6–4, 4–6, 6–1
WTA 125 finals Doubles: 1 (runner-up) ResultDateTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss Copa Bionaire, Colombia Clay Florencia Molinero Catalina Castaño Mariana Duque Mariño 6–3, 1–6, [5–10]
ITF Circuit finals Legend$100,000 tournaments$50,000 tournaments$25,000 tournaments$10,000 tournaments
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups) ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScore Win 1–0 Oct 2006ITF Tucumán, Argentina10,000 Clay Vivian Segnini 6–2, 6–1 Loss 1–1 Oct 2006ITF Córdoba, Argentina10,000 Clay Vanesa Furlanetto 6–1, 1–6, 5–7 Win 2–1 Oct 2006ITF Santiago, Chile10,000 Clay Mailen Auroux 4–6, 6–2, 6–3 Win 3–1 Nov 2006ITF Itajaí, Brazil10,000 Clay Veronica Spiegel 4–6, 6–1, 6–1 Loss 3–2 Nov 2006ITF Córdoba, Argentina10,000 Clay Yanina Wickmayer 1–6, 7–6(4), 0–6 Win 4–2 Mar 2007ITF Athens, Greece10,000 Clay Violette Huck 6–2, 6–1 Win 5–2 Mar 2007ITF Amiens, France10,000 Clay (i) Audrey Bergot 7–5, 3–6, 6–1 Win 6–2 Mar 2007ITF Foggia, Italy10,000 Clay Rebeca Bou Nogueiro 6–4, 6–3 Loss 6–3 May 2007ITF Vienna, Austria10,000 Clay Darija Jurak 1–6, 6–1, 2–6 Win 7–3 Aug 2007ITF Campos do Jordão, Brazil25,000 Hard Maria Fernanda Alves 6–4, 6–2 Win 8–3 Aug 2007ITF Bogotá, Colombia25,000 Clay Frederica Piedade 7–6(2), 6–2 Win 9–3 Dec 2008ITF Buenos Aires, Argentina10,000 Clay Emilia Yorio 6–2, 6–1 Win 10–3 Oct 2010ITF Arujá, Brazil10,000 Clay Vanesa Furlanetto 4–6, 6–4, 6–1 Win 11–3 Oct 2010ITF Londrina, Brazil10,000 Clay Verónica Cepede Royg 6–4, 6–0 Win 12–3 Mar 2011ITF Metepec, Mexico10,000 Hard Amanda Fink 6–4, 6–4 Win 13–3 Jul 2011ITF Denain, France25,000 Clay Valentyna Ivakhnenko 6–4, 6–3 Loss 13–4 Apr 2012ITF Caracas, Venezuela25,000 Hard Adriana Pérez 1–6, 1–6 Win 14–4 May 2012ITF Rosario, Argentina25,000 Clay Mailen Auroux 7–5, 7–6(5) Loss 14–5 Jun 2012ITF Maribor, Slovenia25,000 Clay Anna-Lena Friedsam 6–2, 6–7(1), 2–6 Loss 14–6 Sep 2012ITF Mont-de-Marsan, France25,000 Clay Timea Bacsinszky 2–6, 6–3, 2–6 Win 15–6 Oct 2012ITF Seville, Spain25,000 Clay Estrella Cabeza Candela 4–6, 7–6(3), 7–6(5) Win 16–6 Nov 2012ITF Buenos Aires, Argentina25,000 Clay Amanda Carreras 6–1, 6–2 Win 17–6 Jun 2013ITF Périgueux, France25,000 Clay Daniela Seguel 6–1, 6–4 Win 18–6 Jul 2013ITF Denain, France25,000 Clay Alberta Brianti 6–4, 7–5 Win 19–6 Sep 2013ITF Mont-de-Marsan, France25,000 Clay Pauline Parmentier 6–1, 6–4 Win 20–6 Sep 2013Open de Saint-Malo, France25,000 Clay Pauline Parmentier 6–2, 6–1 Win 21–6 Sep 2013ITF Seville, Spain25,000 Clay Florencia Molinero 7–6(5), 6–3 Loss 21–7 Jul 2014Open de Biarritz, France100,000 Clay Kaia Kanepi 2–6, 4–6 Loss 21–8 Sep 2014ITF Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands25,000 Clay Denisa Allertová 3–6, ret. Win 22–8 Apr 2015Open Medellín, Colombia50,000 Clay Verónica Cepede Royg 7–6(6), 6–1 Loss 22–9 Oct 2019ITF Pula, Italy25,000 Clay Tena Lukas 4–6, 3–6
Doubles: 22 (10 titles, 12 runner-ups) ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartneringOpponentsScore Win 1–0 Nov 2006ITF Itajaí, Brazil10,000 Clay Yanina Wickmayer Fernanda Hermenegildo Monika Kochanová 6–3, 6–3 Win 2–0 Nov 2006ITF Córdoba, Argentina10,000 Clay Yanina Wickmayer Florencia Molinero Veronica Spiegel 7–5, 6–4 Win 3–0 Mar 2007ITF Amiens, France10,000 Clay (i) Marcella Koek Monika Krauze Anna Savitskaya 6–1, 6–0 Win 4–0 May 2007ITF Vienna, Austria10,000 Clay Nikola Hofmanova Katarína Poljaková Zuzana Zlochová 7–6(1), 6–3 Loss 4–1 Jul 2007ITF Mont-de-Marsan, France25,000 Clay Joana Cortez Nina Bratchikova Neuza Silva 3–6, 6–7(3) Loss 4–2 Aug 2007ITF Bogotá, Colombia25,000 Clay Ana Clara Duarte Joana Cortez Roxane Vaisemberg 7–5, 4–6, 4–6 Loss 4–3 Sep 2007ITF Sofia, Bulgaria25,000 Clay Joana Cortez Mihaela Buzărnescu Magdalena Kiszczyńska 4–6, 7–6(2), [4–10] Loss 4–4 Nov 2007ITF Jounieh Open, Lebanon25,000 Clay Nicole Clerico Olga Brózda Maria Kondratieva 3–6, 1–6 Win 5–4 Nov 2007ITF Sintra, Portugal25,000 Clay (i) Nicole Clerico Joana Cortez Roxane Vaisemberg 6–4, 6–2 Win 6–4 Nov 2008ITF Buenos Aires, Argentina10,000 Clay Fernanda Hermenegildo Tatiana Búa María Irigoyen 6–3, 6–2 Loss 6–5 Mar 2011ITF Poza Rica, Mexico10,000 Hard Fernanda Hermenegildo Macall Harkins Nicole Rottmann 2–6, 4–6 Win 7–5 Jul 2011ITF Denain, France25,000 Clay Verónica Cepede Royg Céline Ghesquière Elixane Lechemia 6–1, 6–1 Win 8–5 Jul 2011ITF Campos do Jordão, Brazil25,000 Hard Fernanda Hermenegildo Maria Fernanda Alves Roxane Vaisemberg 3–6, 7–6(5), [11–9] Loss 8–6 Dec 2011ITF Buenos Aires, Argentina25,000 Clay Vivian Segnini Mailen Auroux María Irigoyen 1–6, 3–6 Win 9–6 Apr 2012 ITF Pomezia, Italy10,000 Clay Bianca Botto Benedetta Davato Anne Schäfer 7–6(3), 6–2 Win 10–6 May 2012ITF Rosario, Argentina25,000 Clay Nicole Rottmann Verónica Cepede Royg Luciana Sarmenti 6–2, 7–5 Loss 10–7 Jun 2012ITF Zlín, Czech Republic25,000 Clay Verónica Cepede Royg Elitsa Kostova Jasmina Tinjić 6–4, 1–6, [8–10] Loss 10–8 Sep 2012ITF Mont-de-Marsan, France25,000 Clay Aleksandrina Naydenova Timea Bacsinszky Mihaela Buzărnescu 4–6, 1–6 Loss 10–9 Sep 2012Open de Saint-Malo, France25,000 Clay Aleksandrina Naydenova Pemra Özgen Alyona Sotnikova 4–6, 6–7(6) Loss 10–10 Oct 2012ITF Seville, Spain25,000 Clay Aleksandrina Naydenova Paula Kania Katarzyna Piter 7–5, 4–6, [6–10] Loss 10–11 May 2013Open de Cagnes-sur-Mer, France100,000 Clay Catalina Castaño Vania King Arantxa Rus 6–4, 5–7, [8–10] Loss 10–12 Jul 2014Open de Biarritz, France100,000 Clay Lourdes Domínguez Lino Florencia Molinero Stephanie Vogt 2–6, 2–6
Record against top-10 players Ranked top 10 at some point in their career (but not necessarily when they faced Pereira)